Flint Strong is back in the ring.
The boxing drama, starring Ryan Destiny and being directed by Rachel Morrison, will resume production next week after getting sidelined two years ago due to a Covid shutdown and a switching of studios.
Brian Tyree Henry, who co-stars in Atlanta and appeared in If Beale Street Could Talk, has joined the cast of the production, which now has MGM on board to produce and distribute.
Henry takes the role initially, and very briefly, inhabited by Ice Cube when Flint had a different trajectory two years ago. In March 2020, the feature was being made by Universal Pictures and had just shot two days when the Covid lockdown forced the studio to halt shooting Flint, Jurassic World: Dominion and the Billy Eichner comedy that would later be titled Bros.
While Dominion and Bros eventually resumed shooting, Flint was quietly put on the back-burner and let go. The movie faced two problems. One, its producers, Michael De Luca and Eisha Holmes, had decamped for MGM, where De Luca was now chairman. And while restarting a major budget movie with expensive Covid protocols made sense for a movie like Dominion, those protocols became onerous for a movie with a low budget like Flint. With costs ballooning, Universal quietly let it go.
De Luca, however, proved to be the movie’s benefactor, reconstituting the pieces, getting Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning Moonlight filmmaker who wrote the script for Flint, to take on the role of producer, and with Holmes, now an MGM exec, giving it a new home in the studio. (Ironically, de Luca is once again leaving as one of its guardians, this time due to his impending exit from the studio in the wake of its acquisition by Amazon. He leaves it in capable hands, as Holmes is overseeing the project at MGM.)
Adapting the 2015 boxing documentary T-REX by Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper, Flint tells the true story of 17-year-old Flint Michigan native Claressa “T-REX” Shields, who dreamed of becoming the first woman in history to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing, only to realize that not all dreams are created equal. Destiny is portraying Shields while Oluniké Adeliyi (The Porter) remains in the role of her mother, Jackie Shields.
Henry is playing coach Jason Crutchfield, who worked a cable job by day while training Shields by night.
One reason the project is noteworthy is that is represents the feature directorial debut of Morrison, the director of photography who worked on Black Panther and made history when she became the first woman cinematographer to be nominated for an Oscar.
Canepari, Cooper, as well Lyn Lucibello and Sue Jaye Johnson are executive producing.
“Given the difficulties we’ve faced as a global community over the past two years, I salute Rachel for continuing the journey of bringing this wonderful story from Flint, Michigan to the big screen,” said Jenkins in a statement. “Like our protagonist, Rachel Morrison is made of tough stuff, and we all look forward to supporting her and this tremendous cast in getting this film into the can and into a theater near you.”
Henry appeared in Jenkins’ Oscar-winning If Beale Street Could Talk and played Phastos in Marvel’s Eternals as well as having a role in Godzilla vs. Kong. He will be seen on the big screen opposite Brad Pitt in Sony action thriller Bullet Train and Jennifer Lawrence in A24’s untitled feature from director Lila Neugebauer.
Henry is repped by CAA, Jennifer Wiley-Stockton at JWS Entertainment, and Jackoway Austen.
Source: Hollywood
